The present invention relates to a device by which products ordered in series are supplied to a successive work station.
By way of example, the invention can be used to handle rolls of strip material, or stacks of die-cuts in a wrapping machine, or containers of cigarettes in a packaging machine. The prior art in the field of automatic machinery, and in particular of machines by which commodities are wrapped in strip material uncoiled from rolls, embraces the use of magazines capable of carrying a plurality of such rolls arranged side by side and supplying them automatically to a successive work station by way of a device of the type in question. The rolls are taken up singly and in succession from the magazine by a change mechanism, which transfers a new roll to the work station as the previous roll reaches total depletion. In this manner, a wrapping machine can be made to operate independently. A device for changing rolls of the type utilized in the machines mentioned above consists substantially in transfer means capable of movement from a first position, in which the roll to be transferred to the machine is taken up, and a second position from which the roll is uncoiled by the wrapping machine. Such transfer means take the form of an arm mounted pivotably about an axis disposed parallel to that along which the rolls occupying the magazine are coaxially aligned, of which one end carries a head serving to support the roll.
Magazines of the type in question are structured, complete with a relative feed mechanism, in such a way that the products are advanced toward transfer means operating at one end of the magazine.
Albeit such magazines perform the required function more than satisfactorily in the course of normal operation, serious difficulties are encountered whenever the need arises to empty the magazine of its contents, for example during routine servicing or following a breakdown.
Clearly, such difficulties become especially acute where, in the pursuit of manufacturing space conservation, the magazine containing the rolls is positioned at a high part of the machine, thus making more difficult to reach. The object of the present invention is to provide a conveying device which overcomes the drawbacks outlined above.